


Ja, vi elsker

by Fyrsil



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 14:30:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyrsil/pseuds/Fyrsil
Summary: Denmark is forced to cede Norway to Sweden in 1814 after losing the Napoleonic Wars.





	Ja, vi elsker

**Author's Note:**

> O k a y so this was meant to be a Denmark character study after a few classes we're having on... uh... Denmark in Scandinavian Civilisation, but I am a Norwegian language student and so I still know more about Norway and how it was affected by things that happened in Denmark so...? This is a Norway study..? He's also my second favourite Nordic character in Hetalia so I'm biased to write about him. 
> 
> As I said, I'm a Norwegian language (Scandinavian Studies) student so I did my best to keeps things accurate, but I don't speak Danish so that may be wrong idk
> 
> Hetalia isn't dead, right? Like, I'm so scared it is but please let it still be relevant I've loved this show for years.

“Fuck!” The exclamation rings out through the house, audible even to the servants upstairs who scurry out of sight like mice. “Fuck Britain, fuck France, fuck fucking Sweden!” Crashes come from inside the study. Denmark must be destroying things again, as he’d taken as habit lately. War was always stressful, and Denmark had been hit by terrible ill fortune recently. It had changed him as a person. Broken down the cockiness and then rebuilt it tenfold, but with a mean steak this time.

Norway pushes open the door, unaffected. Denmark zeros in on him immediately, pulling him in roughly and shutting the door. Denmark is ruffled, hair wilder than usual and panting heavily, his chest heaving behind the shoddily buttoned shirt. His knuckles are white as he cutches Norway’s waistcoat, hand shaking, palms sweating.

Without hesitation, Norway grabs one of Denmark’s wrists and pulls it insistently off of him. He knows what this was about, what the consequences for Denmark’s defeat were. He knows that after France had lost the Napoleonic Wars, Denmark was being forced to cede him as territory over the Sweden. He had known it all, had been drawing up hypothesis in his room. He’d been praying for the best outcome, and that happened to look not so different from the reality he found himself in. His people were stirring, and Norwegian pride welled like tears within him.

“Pay attention, Norge,” Denmark spits, shaking him back to the present.

“What, Danmark?” He asks with an aire of indifference. “You knew what you were doing when you changed allegiance like a fat man placing bets. You knew what you had to lose.”

“You’re _happy_ about this, aren’t you,” Denmark accuses.

“What do you want me to say? You didn’t think I’ve been a part of you _willingly_ all these years? You know as well as anyone that if you force a nation to live under you, they will eventually hate it. Hate _you.”_

Denmark slaps him. Norway’s head reels with the blow, and a part of him is scared at the other nation’s overbearing strength. Then he looks up, and his stomach aches. Denmark looks torn between fury and anguish, and there is an unreadable expression on his face as he stares down at his former territory. “It’s not true, Norge, you’re lying. You always lie.”

Huffing, Norway tries to turn from him, but Denmark pulls him around. It’s the first time a spike of fear enters Norway, a warning that something has changed in Denmark, some unspoken boundary has been torn down, something is rotting and it’s grime is making Denmark sick. Unable to free himself from Denmark’s hands, Norway punches him with all the boyishness they’d shared centuries ago, but this time Denmark’s returning punch is far stronger than his and makes Norway’s vision flash white.

“You planned this,” Denmark shakes him like a wolf with its prey, Norway is suddenly scared and clawing at him. “You planed this, you Swedish whore. Whoring yourself off to the Swedes; that’s what it is, isn’t it? Peasants and uncultured ruffians drooling over their neighbours.”

“Stop it!” Norway demands, but Denmark had a hold of his hair and a hold of his arm and he’s twisting it so that Norway’s shoulder is at an uncomfortable angle. “Stop it!” He repeats, but this time there is fear in his voice. Denmark had always been rough and uncouth, but he’d never been this cruel, and he’d always hated hurting Norway.

The new Denmark doesn’t stop. Norway kicks him so that his former owner doubles over and coughs, allowing for Norway to escape, wrenching open the door and dashing down the hallway, up the stairs and into one of the many rooms in the house, where he pushes a couch in front of the door, gasping in an attempt to catch his breath. He is scared, and he isn’t usually scared. Leaving Denmark is one thing, but leaving him in a state like this, Iceland still a child, is terrifying. And deep down, Norway mourns the loss of his friend. He’d been mourning the loss since relations between them had become tense with rising Norwegian nationalism, but now, seeing the profound effect it had had on Denmark, he mourns the jovial spirit Denmark once had been.

And damn it, Norway had never wanted to be ceded to Sweden. He has no intention of that happening. He can feel his glorious Norwegian constitution being written as he hid, by the people, for the people. His intellectuals are locked up, writing it, now.  

“Norway!” Denmark bellows, banging on the door like a madman. “Norge! Kom ud nu!”

“Jeg beklager,” Norway says, too quiet for Denmark to hear. It’s the only time he’ll say it, for he knows he has nothing to be sorry about.

After all, this wasn’t even his choice.

 

As morning dawns, Norway wakes with a crick in his neck, and a silence running though the house. He opens the door cautiously, thankful that Denmark didn’t decide to sleep outside of it. His clothes are dirty and he needs a bath from where he’d sweated cold with unease, but he hasn’t stopped worrying about Iceland since last night, and he makes a hasty detour to the island’s room.

Iceland is awake in his bed, devouring one of his many books hungrily. When Norway enters, the boy looks up, eyes bloodshot from sleeplessness, or maybe crying, and runs to him, wrapping his arms round Norway’s midriff and burying his nose in his brother’s stomach. “I worried about you,” Iceland whimpers, and it makes Norway want to cry too. He crouched down to take Iceland in his arms, savouring the feeling while he could.

“You should have slept.”

“I couldn’t. Denmark shouted for hours, and then he stomped around the house for several more. He stopped outside my door, and I wondered if he was angry at me, too. Is it true that you’re leaving?”

“Yes,” Norway said. He swallowed, “Denmark sided with the losing side. That means he has to give up me.”

“Why?” Iceland asks innocently.

“Because the world isn’t fair.”

“I wish we weren’t just chess pieces for other nations to move around,” Iceland says, with wisdom far beyond his years making his words ring eerily in the early morning. Norway beholds his little brother with pain and pride. “I think we should all be free.”

“Would you choose to live alone, if you could?”

“Yes!” Iceland says instantly, “or… maybe with you. I’ll miss you.”

Norway can’t help but hug him again, and as he closes his eyes they prick with unwelcome tears. “I’ll miss you too, little brother. So much.”

They stay like that for a while, and then Iceland stiffens. Norway turns, stands, glares at the nation at the door. Denmark stares emptily back at him.

“Step away from my territory, Norway. You don’t have my permission to talk to it.”

Norway could bite through his tongue with the anger that shakes his body, but he holds back for Iceland’s sake. “What is it?”

“Sweden has come to take you now.”

Something is wrong. “He shouldn’t be here so soon. I should be going back to Norway first.”

“Don’t ask me,” Denmark says frostily, “as if I arranged any of this.”

Norway follows him to the drawing room, and Iceland follows a few steps behind. Norway knows he should stop the boy – protect him from the messy world of war and politics – but he selfishly wonders if this is the last time he’ll see him in centuries. Denmark stakes a seat as soon as he enters, pouring a glass of whisky with little regard for the other countries.

Sweden is siting stiffly in an upright chair by the window. All his buttons are done up on his rich outer coat, and Norway takes it as a statement that he intends to leave quickly. Sweden looks hard done by compared to the last time Norway saw him. Finland has not been long gone, and it was no secret that Sweden loved his little territory, outside of all the messy oppression and politics. Finland was having a hard time under Russia. It was a mess of tsarism and Finnish nationalism and Norway didn’t envy the nation who he’d not yet informally met.

Sweden stands when he sees Norway, nodding stiffly at him. Norway nods back, and perches on the arm of an abandoned armchair, too anxious to sit. Iceland hovers by the door.

“Don’t fuck ‘im too soon,” Denmark slurs. He isn’t really drunk yet, just mean with spite. “He bites ya if you do.”

“Denmark,” Norway warns. Sweden ignored the vulgarity, though he clears his throat awkwardly.

“Ahv come to take him to my place,” Sweden says.

“Yeah yeah, go, take ‘m, ‘s fine,” Denmark waved his hand in the air, gesturing as if to make Norway go away.

“I have something to say first,” Norway tried to butt into through the tension.

Sweden is standing, nodding to Denmark and approaching Norway and the door. Norway steps back deftly as Sweden tried to lay a hand on his shoulder. “I have something to say,” he says again, glaring at the Swede is an unspoken warning. Sweden is more receptive to Norway’s cold insistence, and waits while Norway collects himself. “I’m going back to Norway first,” Norway says, “I’m not going with you straight away, Sweden.”

“You’re my territory now, you don’t have a say in this.”

Norway takes another step back. “I’m going back to my own country. I have a constitution.”

“You’ll never win, Norway,” Denmark taunts, “not against me, not against old Sverige. P’aps ‘gainst Iceland or Greenland, you’d win. With luck.”

“I’m independent now,” Norway insists. He regrets letting Iceland follow them, because he realises there’s no way Sweden will let him go without a fight, nor Denmark without vulgar insult. “I’m going back to Norway.”

Sweden glowers at him, and Norway can see every unslept night, ever day aching for Finland, ever hour agonising over war in the other nation’s face. “If you do, there’ll be war. I don’t control that.”

Norway knew it, and oh he did sympathise with Sweden. Sweden wasn’t mean. Sweden wasn’t bad. But he would oppress Norway, willingly or no, and Norway had been mulling his own independence for years. He couldn’t troy alongside Sweden like some sort of obedient dog.

“Let there be war. This is worth fighting for,” he decided finally, turning his back on the two men, scooping Iceland into his arms for a final goodbye, and then, ten minutes later, leaving Denmark’s house for good to begin the short journey back to the comforting mountains and fjords of his own country. There was nothing like Norway: his scenery was unmatched, his people diverse and strong, his nature outstanding, his language exquisite. Norway wasn’t ready to cede his freedom again. He’d fight against oppression tooth and nail.

 

Norway couldn’t win against Sweden in the end, though he fought bitterly. Nonetheless, he bloomed under Swedish rule in a way that had been impossible under Denmark. Sweden gave him the freedom to discover himself independent of Danish influence. Nynorsk and ja, vi elsker and all the prettiness of national romanticism built the foundation of his forgotten identity. He retold folk tales that had almost been lost in oral tradition, and his people were reminded of their unique history, back in the Viking era.

It was a long road, but Norway was becoming free.

 


End file.
